


Daddy Issues

by GalekhXigisi



Series: The Unholy Holy Trinity Collection [19]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon-Typical Violence, Deadbeat Dad, Deadlights (IT), Dissociation, F/M, I barely even remember writing this, M/M, Mike Hanlon Deserves Nice Things, Multi, Pennywise (IT) Being an Asshole, Pennywise Is Richie's Dad, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie Tozier Needs a Hug, Trans Richie Tozier, Transphobia, except PW, only lightly there tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:40:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22668673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalekhXigisi/pseuds/GalekhXigisi
Summary: With the revelation that Richie's deadbeat dad is actually the killer clown attempting to murder his friends and himself, Richie forms a plan to say them. Pennywise never should have said anything to the boy.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon/Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Series: The Unholy Holy Trinity Collection [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553902
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	Daddy Issues

It’s easy to ignore the first appearance of Pennywise. Richie doesn’t know how it is, but it  _ is, _ but he thinks that maybe he could ignore it because of all the shit he’s smoked within the time he’s spent with his cousins, tripping on acid more than a couple of times with Boris and smoking weed that ended up laced with some shit because Mike  _ wanted to try something. _ And he finds himself ignoring it, too, when the clown haunts him as he stands as  _ “lookout” _ for Beverly and the rest of the group while they clean the girl’s bathroom, which is covered in blood. If he was hit by the deadlights from a clown that could only show him being the next version of Pennywise, well, he easily blamed it on whatever the fuck he smoked beforehand.

It’s easy to ignore and falls to the back of his mind after school ends. However, it’s not easy to ignore when he’s following Bill up the stairs to a crackhouse that Richie’s seen people shoot up in. 

His cheeks are itchy as can be, eyes burning and skin feeling downright like he had touched poison ivy. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say his nails were getting pulled right off of his fingers, but he glances at them and finds that they’re still there, even if they’re enflamed from the nervous biting he’s learned over the years. He’s sort of tempted to ask Eddie for some of his itch cream, but it goes forgotten, just like his comments as he walks through the home, looking at the cobwebs. Even his commented,  _ Don’t breathe through your mouth, _ doesn’t take hold as he explores. 

There’s an assortment of cobwebs and papers that Richie finds himself drawn to, ignoring Bill’s pondering gaze crossing over the other rooms and Eddie’s terrified inhale from the watered “medication” in his inhaler. His eyes are drawn to another paper, the only one with color on it, as it seems. 

It’s a missing poster, one with Richie’s face on it. There are markings over the cheeks that match the ones Bill’s described on the clown, red, bloodied. The picture presents softer features and long hair tied up in a bow,  _ Rosalyn Tozier _ put on display for those to see. And it makes Richie’s stomach dip as soon as he grabs the loose piece, the other collection of papers forgotten as the aches and itches grow. Now his back hurts, too, and his breathing is quick and either hitting too deep or too shallow, no in-between. It makes his lungs fucking  _ hurt. _

“What,” Bill asks, walking over with Eddie. They both have concern written on their features. 

Richie can feel the tears burning in his eyes, which only makes the burning already there fucking  _ worse. _ He tries to stay neutral as he softly tells, “I - It says I’m missing.” His voice cracks and dips, which certainly doesn’t help. His eyes are glossy as he peers at the picture with his two friends. He finds his panic growing as he starts running over the details, voice shrill, high, and all that much more feminine, “That’s my face, Bill!” He puts it up to his own mug, his free hand scratching at his cheeks in hope to quench that harsh itch that makes him just want to  _ sob. _ He’s panicking. 

It was no secret that Maggie Tozier was…  _ not the best mother. _ No, she was harsh and rarely ever home. Richie could never blame her, though, despite her anger and clear gripe. She was a single mother living in a house with her son. She always made it clear that she didn’t want Richie, either. He was just there because  _ you were from a one night stand where the bastard didn’t pull out and I couldn’t afford a morning-after pill. _ She’d tell him what little she remembered about the man. He was kind of tall, had bright orange hair, and pale skin. It only partially made sense. Richie’s hair was black, dark and certainly not the light brown his mother sported or supposed orange his mother liked to talk about, almost as if she was still starstruck. And Richie’s hair coiled, too, unlike his mother’s, which was only waves. She could never tell him if his father had looked like outside of  _ that. _ Richie wishes she could. 

His binder doesn’t feel tight enough as Bill rips the paper out of his hands. It should certainly be tight enough, his breathing still quick as Bill holds onto his wrists and talks to him, doing his best to ground him. His mother’s words are the only thing he can focus on right now, though, and the bruise that had resulted from an explosive fit his mother had just a few nights ago on the rare occasion that they saw each other. Sure, Maggie had gotten his name changed and moved towns where no one knew about  _ Rosie Tozier, _ but she had told him, _ If you went missing, I wouldn’t search for you. _ She had only done those two things because they got Richie to leave her alone. She still called him the wrong name and refused to get binders or hormones or whatever else, so Richie stayed more with Stan’s family than at his own house. They knew about that extra layer of bandages and they still called him Richie, still fed him and accepted him as part of the family. And, really, Richie adores the entire Uris household for that, even if he doesn’t say it all that much. 

It takes Bill quite literally digging his nails into Richie’s wrist to get the boy’s attention, which was the last resort, Richie knew. No one liked getting violent unless they absolutely  _ had to. _ However, the pain got Richie’s attention a lot faster than repeating his name and the boy has no idea how long they’ve been standing there but he’s dizzy and there are patches in his vision. Tears plop on the dusty floor as he focuses on what Bill’s saying. Richie hadn’t planned on telling them this way, but he’s been friends with them since he was seven, so, if they didn’t have their own suspicions by now, well, they would at some point, wouldn’t they? 

At some point, Bill pulls away. Richie follows him like a lost puppy, which is something he would always do, no matter the cost. He hates how loyal he is to his friend, but Eddie grabs his hand and Richie holds tight to it as they walk up the stairs. His mind is hazy as he watches Betty get snatched up by something invisible in the other room and he pretends he doesn’t distinctively notice Eddie letting go of his hand. It makes his stomach dip and he glances back to the boy, who looks panicked but gives Richie a warily reassuring look as the taller boy quickly wipes away his tears. 

One second, Eddie is behind Richie, the next, he’s not and Richie is locked in a room with Bill, the door slammed shut and Betty Ripson’s body is nowhere to be seen. The door’s lock is on the outside, leaving the two stranded as Richie listens to the boy’s scream and the sounds of something heavy dropping. Vaguely, somewhere in his mind, he’s pretty sure it’s Eddie. The thud is still fresh as he hears a sharp,  _ “Rosie,” _ that sounds like it’s whispered right in his ear. He jerks around, movement silent and the space behind him empty. 

He stalks towards the room, his heart in his throat as he hears,  _ “Rosie,” _ one last time, then a laugh from the boy who peeks out from behind one of the many covered items in the side room. It takes Richie a moment to even register that it’s Eddie, who dips away from the taller, hiding behind one of the many blanketed items. And, without a second thought, Richie finds himself following the word, eyes filling with tears at the other’s words. Only his mother still called him that, and for good reason. 

His hands are brought to his chest, one wrist against himself while the other hand suddenly flicks to his face, scratching as the skin before joining the first. “Eddie,” he whimpers. He takes tentative steps near the covered items, careful to avoid the middle, where it would surely creak beneath him. It’s a habit he had formed when he was young and had yet to drop as he pursues the voice he had heard and face he’d seen. He feels like he’s seen a ghost. His vision blurs through unshed tears. 

“Richie?” Comes Bill’s voice. The taller boy turns towards the door, feeling something light in his chest at the familiar face. He follows the other, who now stands within view, but after a total of two seconds of striding forward, the door slams shut and Richie runs towards it, pulling desperately at the handle. 

_ “Bill,” _ he screams through the door, voice painfully high as he banks on it, twisting the handle in desperation. He wonders, vaguely, if the lock is on the outside. His screams aren’t met with the door opening, just Bill yelling hack at him. 

Then, everything falls suddenly silent and Richie falters, pulling away as his nails dig into his cheeks, frantically scratching at the skin. He can’t stop the cry that leaves him. Was he alone? Had Bill given up on him? Had Bill been snatched up, too? Worries pile up. He almost ignores the sound of fabric shuffling behind him, but he slowly turns after a moment, another soft sob leaving him as he finds the assortment of clown statues behind him. 

It’s creepy, yes, but not scary. He’d seen these in horror movies, seen clowns portrayed as scary, but that wasn’t Richie’s fear. No, his fear was always getting outed and being alone, but one of his secrets had already been tossed into the ring and he couldn’t hear Bill outside. The light on the ceiling swings and flickers, a haunting blue taking over the room. Richie doesn’t mind it all that much, just huffing out an almost  _ annoyed, _ “Oh, shit.” 

Something touches the back of his leg, though, and he sharply turns. Just behind him is a small little clown doll. Richie doesn’t even have to think before he’s kicking the thing, glass shattering beneath the attack. It was an instinct learned through fear to attack back if something scared him, one he had learned after his mother’s ill-treatment towards her child. He winces, his foot aching and the glass shards collecting in his leg. He kicks the remains of the doll away and fights back and angry glare at the cloth and porcelain. 

“Ugly ass decor,” he huffs at the little thing, turning to face the other statues. He glares at them, but his focus falls up the thing in the middle. The curtain over it gets torn back, as well as the windows beside it, leaving it in view for the boy to focus on and the boy alone. He rolls his eyes and fusses, “This is really cliche and overplayed, you fuck,” as it opens slowly.

Despite that, he still meets the coffin in the middle of the room, glaring at the  _ found _ written in blood on the open top. There sits his poster, yellow eyes now looking into his own and a smirk on the face of the poster. There are still those bloody markings that make Richie consciously scratch at the ones on his cheeks. His gums ache and he blames it on how hard he’s clenching his teeth as he glares at the covered body inside the coffin. 

Reluctantly, he yanks back the clothe and finds the remains underneath pretty chilling. It’s the feminine version of himself, which he’s not all that surprised at, mouth sewn shut. Despite the doll’s mouth being sewn shut, there’s still an attempt to open their mouth, tearing lips and leaving blood to trail down. Maggots crawl across bloodied skin, over the markings on his cheeks that were practically carved. Once again, Richie finds himself digging into the skin there, his breathing sharp at the view of long hair in bows and the skirt over bruised legs. It takes him a moment to see that the bruises are hand-shaped. The instant he realizes, he finds himself yanking the damn coffin shut as harshly as he can. He is but a string bean, as Eddie had called him a few times, but Richie has a lot of strength to him, so it slams shut with a loud noise. 

The instant it’s slammed, though, a clown pops out of it, Richie jumps back in surprise, knocking into one of the doll statues behind him that cause a domino effect, others falling with it. But Richie is far more focused on the curly-haired  _ fuck _ right in front of him, kneeling on a coffin and saying, “Beep beep, Rosie,” with a little hand gesture. “My little daughter,  _ growing up,” _ he muses. 

“Your fucking  _ what,” _ Richie practically screams, glaring at the clown. There’s no possible fucking  _ way _ this clown could be his dad, nope, not at fucking  _ all. _ Sure, Richie’s real dad was a deadbeat and his mom had no way to contact him after they fucked, but it wasn’t like he could be a fucking clown that goes dormant for  _ twenty-seven years. _ Richie is twelve, not twenty-seven, after all, so the timeline would be off. 

“Rosalyn!” the clown cheers, “daughter to Maggie Tozier and Pennywise the  _ dancing clown!” _

“As fucking if,” Richie huffs, his arms crossing in a moment of defiance, but he can feel his mind falling into a haze. Could the clown even repopulate? Was that a  _ thing? _ Richie didn’t even want to  _ consider _ his mother getting dicked down by some killer clown that would eventually try to kill her kid. “What, do you fuck some random lady and have a kid so you can have, like, some mother fucker be your  _ next of kin _ or some shit as an insurance policy?” 

“Don’t snap at your elders,  _ girl,” _ Pennywise recounts with a smirk before lunging forward, to which Richie turns and runs. 

Finally,  _ finally, _ Bill pries the door open, a crowbar in one hand and Richie’s own in the other. 

Richie pretends everything else doesn’t pass in a haze. He pretends he isn’t on autopilot until he hears, _ “Is this not fatherly material, Rosie,” _ from the clown. He flinches,  _ hard, _ and rushes to Eddie, ignoring the other’s scream after Beverly had plunged the fencing into the clown's head. 

“I’m not  _ scared of you,” _ he screams at the clown. He’s _ not. _ Richie’s scared of a lot of things. His mother, being outed tow the town, the repercussions of being outed, abandonment, his friends hating him, a million different things, but a clown posing as his deadbeat dad? Well,  _ that _ isn’t fucking one of those things he’s scared of, not really. He holds tight to Eddie as the clown pulls away from the group and watches Mike and Stan tackle Ben’s fresh cuts that line the ones Henry made not too long ago. 

He’s in a haze when they leave, and when they take Eddie to his mother, _ and _ when Bill starts talking. It’s all hazy and he’s scratching his cheek and his nails ache like they’re being pulled and he really just wants to never have acknowledged the information Pennywise has spurred on him so harshly. But he’s  _ got to, _ because even on the ride to Eddie’s house, no one said that Pennywise called him their kid and he’s not going to bring it up after he had asked and Eddie had told him to _ Shut the fuck up, fucking dickwad! None of us got called his kid and that’s not the fucking concern right now, you fucking- _ Yeah, Richie wasn’t going to ask again. 

The group is yelling at each other and Richie is only aiding in it. Everything is fuzzy until Bill punches him over the bruise his mother had left and it all crashes. Suddenly, everything in Richie's brain is screaming about what’s going on and Richie has to face it or get culled for his wrongdoings such as existing. Stan and Mike have to hold him back as he screams at Bill and ignores Beverly’s own yelling at them. He’s angry and  _ maybe  _ he’s crying, too, but no one needs to know that. Richie doesn’t even let her finish before he’s walking away from the group. 

And finally, Richie thinks, he’s faced all his fears. 

His friends hate him, the town knows he’s gay, his friends now all know about the birth name that was far from just a  _ coincidence _ when he heard a  _ distinctly masculine _ name for Beverly, too. He doubts it’s a coincidence and finds himself walking home and being face to face with a  _ very _ pissed off Maggie Tozier. When his bathroom gets soaked in blood and he finds himself alone in the red mess, he realizes he’s alone, just as he was when they left him alone to clean Beverly’s bathroom.

In the free time he has, he mulls everything over in his head. There’s a distinct shift between then and now, one that sat before and after that dancing clown. He has a chance to think about what he’d been shown.  _ He _ was the next dancing clown, or some  _ shit, _ the one supposed to kill his friends after his “father” does so, to raise the next generation of killer clowns, but Richie can’t find it in him to do so. After all, Richie has no urge to eat his friends. And Richie was just an insurance policy, in case Pennywise was murdered, but he’d been reigning to  _ hundreds _ of years now, never needing those extra  _ maybes _ since he first happened. Richie had no desire to eat people, anyway. He  _ liked _ human food. 

But he distinctly remembers Beverly getting captured and marks it on his calendar to save her, writing dates and times so he doesn’t forget. Richie doesn’t care  _ what _ he has to do, that damn clown made the mistake of showing him the future, even if it was just for what he was going to become, and Richie was going to use it to save his friends, no matter how much they hate him. 

Within the time he has to wait out and plan, it becomes very apparent that Richie is, well,  _ lonely. _ It’s not like he can just talk to the losers, they’re all making a point of avoiding each other. Even  _ Stanley _ is a part of that mix, which makes Richie cry when he realizes that. It’s odd, they live right fucking neet to each other, too, so it isn’t as if Richie doesn’t  _ see him. _ But Stan doesn’t see Richie because Richie rarely leaves the house and he keeps the doors locked and windows shut at any and all points he possibly can. It’s not as if he has anywhere to go, what with his friends no longer being his friends and the arcade currently getting avoided until Richie’s back with his friends. 

Richie also has nightmares that prevent him from sleeping. He’s rather sure the neighbors can hear him waking up at odd times, screaming and crying. It’s not as if these homes are made to be silent and he’s just a loud sort of person, to begin with. However, no one says anything. He doesn’t even get the Rabbi checking on him like he normally does when Richie misses church or stays away for a few days, so he guesses Stan must have told his parents everything. He was so close to both of them… 

The nightmares aren’t kind. It’s things like Pennywise, the clown showing him his own origin, just little moments where he appears in Richie’s life to do little things. That makes sense. Richie had an imaginary friend when he was a child, just a clown that he saw every once in a while that would give him little trinkets. He desperately ends up digging out one of the little bows he stashed away in his closet when he first moved there. It’s there and present, too, which makes Richie vomit. The other nightmares have to do with his friends dying, things that could certainly happen but hadn’t in the future Richie had foreseen, but they all feel like the deadlights, with their hazy existence and fogged future. But Richie remembers each and every single one of these dreams, so, he quickly realizes that they’re far more than just  _ dreams.  _

He waits and waits until he finds himself in Bev’s apartment, in the doorway walking through silently. He finds Beverly’s father in the hallway. Before the man can kick the door, he says, “Sir?” 

The man turns towards him. Richie feels so small at the angry,  _ “What the fuck,” _ he hears and the share glare the man has. “Who the  _ fuck _ are you and how did you get in?” 

“The front door was open,” he reports quickly, “and I saw your car getting towed! I wanted to tell you before they finished towing it!” 

He waits with bated breath as the man’s expression shifts from something of pure anger to forced control. He almost cries in relief when he pushes past Richie to storm out. It’s painfully obvious that he’s still pissed, but Richie is happy Beverly didn’t get the chance to hit him with the toilet seat. So, he moves forward and knocks gingerly on the bathroom door, his heart beating in his throat as he begs, “Bev? Beverly, hey, I know you hate me, but your dad’s gone and I-” 

The door opens swiftly and Richie scoots back, arms going to cover his face in case she’s going to hit him. It wouldn’t be the first time someone he was close to got angry and punched him and he doubts it’ll be the last, but instead, Beverly has her arms wrapped around his shoulders and there are tears falling down her face. 

“I’m sorry,” Richie whimpers before she can speak, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to - to start a fight with Bill or to yell at you. I’m sorry. I am  _ so _ sorry.” He finds himself repeating the words  _ I’m sorry  _ over and over again as he begs for her forgiveness as if  _ he _ had thrown the punch. However, he knows that saying Bill’s brother was dead and that _It_ was his fault, well, that  _ was _ something anyone with a brain would scream at him for. 

“We need to leave,” Beverly says, not giving him a response to his rambling. 

“Get the toilet’s lid,” Richie says solidly, his voice a whisper, “and we can’t come back for a while.” 

“Why?” The girl finally pulls away but it’s only to raise a confused brow. 

“My dad’s pretty shit, too,” Richie mumbles, already moving through the home, to which Beverly follows suit. They run out of the house before slipping past her father, who was angrily fussing at the guy towing his truck. And Richie vaguely wonders, somewhere in the back of his mind, if it was real or if he was the on that caused it. Despite that, he holds tight to Beverly’s hand and runs like his life depends on it. Because, really, it  _ does. _

They run into Bill,  _ quite literally. _ Richie is the one to run into Bill. He was running through an alleyway, focused on Beverly, facing her. However, when he rounded the corner to the building, he slammed right into the boy he was thinking about, which was  _ great _ for them. However, it’s going to lead to a lot of bruises and Richie is rather certain both his arm and cheek are bleeding as he literally  _ falls over _ Bill and collides so roughly with the ground that he loses his breath. 

“R - R - Richie,” Bill asks, leaning over the side of his bike to peer at the boy struggling to breathe in front of him. “What’s going o - on?” 

“Running,” Richie wheezes, using his hand to wipe at his cheek. There is, very distinctly, a  _ lot _ of red. He flinches at his own touch.  _ “It’s _ back.  _ Bad.” _ He can’t get much out through the wheezing and he’s tempted to cry out of frustration. 

_ “What,” _ the boy asks sharply. When he reaches a hand down to help the taller boy up, Richie  _ flinches, _ regretting it immediately at the guilty expression he sees on the older boy’s face. 

Richie forces himself up and pretends his breathing is harsh and stuttered. He heaves out his breaths, hands on his knees, breathing painful.  _ “Call Eddie,” _ he whines,  _ “Gotta. Me.” _ He ignores Bill’s guilty look and Bevely’s frown. It’s not hard. “Gotta call the others, too. Save them.” 

“Save them?” Richie can feel Ben frowning at him. “R - Richie, what’s goi - ing on?” 

_ “It’s _ going to  _ kill them,” _ Richie says, “and I c - can save them.” 

_ “You,” _ Beverly asked with a raised brow. It sounds like she’s about to laugh at him, actually. “How can you save them? How do you even know his too?” 

Richie wipes at the blood and finally glares at them, fumbling to pull his glasses back on. The taps the side of his head and says, “got deadlighted.” 

“What’s that,” Beverly returns. 

“Captures your mind,” he says, gesturing towards his head, humming softly. “Makes you see shit. He almost got  _ you, _ Bev.” 

“He… He got you,?’ 

Richie nods, turning away as he forces himself to breathe. He leans up all the way, finally. It aches. “When everyone cleaned your bathroom,” comes the grim response. He doesn’t give them the time to continue. “I’ll get Mike and Eddie, you two get Ben and Stan, an’ get my bike, too.” Before they even have the chance to say anything, he’s running down the road, quick and without remorse. He isn’t ready to reveal anything about this yet, nor admit that the clown is his father. 

Richie had a plan. He doesn’t come up with plans a lot, but he has to get this over with. If he doesn’t, Richie has no idea how many more are going to die. It’s held in Richie’s hands, the plan to save his friends and a lot more of Derry. And he  _ has to. _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I seriously barely remember writing c1 so I'll have to reread it a couple of times, but here it finally is! 
> 
> Please leave comments and reviews! Or little suggestions towards the future chapters! 
> 
> Here's my Discord server!  
> https://discord.gg/eGkwayy


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